How far would you go to avoid work?

Man Saws Off Foot to Avoid Work…And Continue Unemployment Benefits

The Blaze: School children can come up with the most elaborate schemes to get themselves out of class, even psyching themselves up so much that they really do end up being sick. But what of adults simply not wanting to go to work? One Austrian man must have thought being adult required even more drastic measures than faking a stomach ache. So, he cut off his own foot.

This is not a joke. An Austrian man really sawed off his own foot yesterday, according to Reuters, to avoid going back to work when a labor office official was set to check in on his health. Here are some more details:

Hours before an appointment on Monday for the labor office to check on his health, the 56-year-old man held his left leg against an electric saw in his home workshop and severed his foot just above the ankle, Austrian broadcaster ORF reported.

Bleeding profusely, the man from the province of Styria then threw the foot into an oven, hobbled to his garage and called an ambulance. An emergency operation was unable to reattach the foot, ORF said.

According to Metro, the local police chief Franz Fasching said the man was still conscious when help arrived on the scene, although he had lost a lot of blood. Fasching said the foot was too badly burned from being in the oven to be salvageable.

ORF called it a “desperate” act of a man wishing to continue receiving unemployment benefits. The man will not be able to claim disability benefits after this gruesome act, the Minister for Social Affairs Rudolf Hundstorfer said, but should he file for mental disabilities that situation could change.

Well, guess he might get his wish. He’ll end up with an entitlement to avoid working. Too bad he won’t be able to walk around to fully enjoy his benefits.

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8 responses to “How far would you go to avoid work?”

That’s why Sloth is one of the 7 Deadly Sins. In this Austrian man’s case, he also has a second Deadly Sin — Envy — for coveting other people’s money and having taxpayers support his sloth. I honestly cannot understand why some people dread working so much.

Happily, slothful Americans don’t have to resort to drastic acts like cutting off a foot to continue their unemployment benefits. Ain’t Amerika great? [snark]

“For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” 2 Thessalonians 3:10

Or maybe, instead of being lazy, entitled, and damned for multiple mortal sins, he is just a little sick in the head, and maybe deserves a little Christian compassion. Sometimes there is a distinct lack of that here. I’m a little surprised Sage hasn’t stepped in, especially for Dr. Eowyn’s mis-used biblical quote.

Most of my patients have mental issues. Most are in good enough physical condition to get some sort of work… If anyone would hire them. We’ve all seen the charity jobs given to the handicapped (phsyical and mental) at Wal-Mart, but those are the “poster children,” if you will.

Even a short interview with a fellow like the Austrian is likely to alarm a prospective employer into not hiring him, especially in an economy where one can afford to pick and choose from a large pool of applicants.

Before you yell, “Get a job!” to that “bum” on the street asking for money, ask yourself if YOU would take him to your boss and recommend giving him a job. And before you get all self-righteous about “personal responsibility,” count up how many volunteer hours YOU have put in recently as a mentor in an inner-city hellhole, and how much time you’ve spent looking into the relationships between poverty, crime, homelessness, and chronic unemployment. If you can solve the problem in a sentence or two, you have no real understanding of what it really is.

Since the story lacks details of his mental state, we can only go by details reported. Maybe he does have mental issues, or maybe he likes living in a socialist utopia where he doesn’t have to work. Big government wants to be your savior. Whose to say the government promise didn’t influence his actions?

What’s this post got to do with my studying the effects of crime and poverty? I don’t feel the need to advertise what it is that I do nor why I choose to volunteer where I do.